I have been getting a lot of email and phone calls from incoming CMC students asking me what to expect and to help them pick their courses. As always, I'm happy to help. Thankfully CMCNation has put up the reason why I decided to attend CMC.
| "I didn't. It chose me." |  |  |
Why I Came to CMC... Current Students Speak Out Written by Charles Johnson '11 Why did I choose Claremont McKenna? I didn't. It chose me. And knowing Claremont's admissions staff, it probably chose you.
A little background... I had already applied to more than a dozen colleges and I had been wait listed at over six, including all of my dream colleges. I was disappointed -- kids that I had tutored got into the Ivy League, Stanford, etc -- and I felt as if the college admissions game were unfairly stacked against me. As the letters from other colleges mounted -- I ended up being wait listed at seven schools -- I wondered what I was going to do.
And then I got a phone call.
Apparently, in the confusion, I had forgotten to send my essay on a leader. Any other school would have just sent me a note saying that I was rejected, but Claremont McKenna's dean of admissions called me up and told me that I had forgotten it. After the slog of applying to more than a dozen schools, I was tired of feeling like a number. Claremont tried me as if I were a person who they would like to get to know and who must have submitted an essay. At Claremont, you exist and there are many people pulling for your success -- people you don't even know, alums, other students.
I decided then and there that I would go to Claremont McKenna, a school I had never even heard of and had only applied to on a lark. I had never been to Los Angeles County before, but it didn't seem to matter. I contacted a few professors beforehand and asked them if there were any books I ought to read before I got on campus. I read them all and counted down the days.
It's funny, because weeks later after I got to campus, I got another phone call me from one of those big name colleges. He told me that he was miserable and that he didn't feel as if he were learning anything, and of course, the weather didn't make things any better. I wouldn't have traded places with him for anything. I loved my classes and felt like I was getting to the bottom of things I had always wanted to explore. And as a student from a far left prep school in the Boston area, I love how conservatives can be open -- for the most -- on CMC's campus about their politics.
Now to be fair, Claremont McKenna has its problems, which I try to highlight and correct at my blog about school affairs, The Claremont Conservative and as editor of its best newspaper, The Claremont Independent, but I hope you'll find that CMC is the place for you. And if it doesn't meet your fancy, I hope you find what you're looking for.
~Charles
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